was so known. I remembered constantly that address from Dr. Butler
when I was a little boy. Dr. Longley might with equal justice have
said the same thing any day,--only that Dr. Longley never in his
life was able to say an ill-natured word. Dr. Butler only became
Dean of Peterborough, but his successor lived to be Archbishop of
Canterbury.

I think it was in the autumn of 1831 that my mother, with the rest
of the family, returned from America. She lived at first at the
farmhouse, but it was only for a short time. She came back with a
book written about the United States, and the immediate pecuniary
success which that work obtained enabled her to take us all back to
the house at Harrow,--not to the first house, which would still have
been beyond her means, but to that which has since been called
Orley Farm, and which was an Eden as compared to our abode at
Harrow Weald. Here my schooling went on under somewhat improved
circumstances. The three miles became half a mile, and probably
some salutary changes were made in my wardrobe. My mother and
my sisters, too, were there. And a great element of happiness was
added to us all in the affectionate and life-enduring friendship
of the family of our close neighbour Colonel Grant. But I was never
able to overcome--or even to attempt to overcome--the absolute
isolation of my school position. Of the cricket-ground or racket-court
I was allowed to know nothing. And yet I longed for these things
with an exceeding longing. I coveted popularity with a covetousness
that was almost mean. It seemed to me that there would be an
Elysium in the intimacy of those very boys whom I was bound to hate
because they hated me. Something of the disgrace of my school-days
has clung to me all through life. Not that I have ever shunned to
speak of them as openly as I am writing now, but that when I have